


Adaptation

by meanderingsoul



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Caretaking, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Gen, Introspection, Mentor/Protégé, Parenthood, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Relationship, Team as Family, Trauma, the Barton family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-19 17:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13709121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanderingsoul/pseuds/meanderingsoul
Summary: It was literally in a different lifetime for him now, but sometimes Coulson forgot just how much he’d enjoyed the whole ‘Uncle Phil’ thing.He’d never even anticipated someone like Daisy.





	Adaptation

 

It was literally in a different lifetime for him now, but sometimes Coulson forgot just how much he’d enjoyed the whole ‘Uncle Phil’ thing.

There hadn’t been many times, many years where he had people in his life who called him that, but he’d liked it so much. He’d been a level 3 agent before it sank in that he was never going to be willing to have it both ways so to speak, to live a lie and be an absent father. To put someone through half of the shit he’d dealt with growing up in a new town where no one knew what the fuck they were talking about.

In hindsight, Fury’d probably found him as much from his juvenile record as he had because of the whole classified-senior-thesis thing.

If he was staying with Shield and doing it right, then he was never going to be a dad. It sucked and it hurt, but he’d made his decision and made his peace with it. What else was there to do?

May’d had a different perspective about it all.

You learned a lot about a person after a decade, even when you didn’t see them for months on end. He’d known she’d wanted boys, preferably two because she’d wanted siblings as a kid. She’d wanted soccer practice and messy school projects and phone calls from high pitched voices that didn’t make a lot of sense yet, running to greet them when she got back from assignment.

He’d also known she’d never once considered leaving field work and probably never would. May was the best, remained one of the most well-rounded specialists with her skillset and with the fewest psychological quirks that Shield had ever produced.

They’d fought about it eventually. Hadn’t meant to, didn’t speak for weeks.

Andrew’d pulled the same stunt Phil’d always pulled for May whenever they were fighting and she wasn’t ready to talk, answering her phone for her with the most blatantly contrived excuses he could come up with. Phil’d almost lost it and laughed in the third week of silence when Andrew managed to with a perfectly even tone claim that May couldn’t answer her phone because she was _painting her nails_.

He’d said he didn’t want to be selfish by trying to be both agent and parent, and inevitably putting work in front of family.

May had just… stared at him. “Selfish,” she’d said quietly, with this horrified little edge to her voice and Phil had realized in a sickening moment that for the first time in their lives he’d actually hurt her.

“I didn’t mean…” he’d stared to say, but she’d opened the car door and it was everything he could do to get it stopped in time for her to walk away.

Their next assignment they avoided each other, silent and professional, and it sucked so much of the joy out of the job. It was fine when Phil worked with relative strangers, running backend for Strike teams or coordinating other operations, but having to maintain that kind of professionalism even in the moments that were just him and May was exhausting. They’d finally gotten into their first ever, all out screaming match in the back of a stolen ambulance in Beaumont. Neither of them were prone to yelling, or approved of it, but it finally cleared the air.

Things had been really good for a while.

May was planning to spend most of those months she’d be off the field work rotation teaching. The academy was of course beside themselves to have a chance to keep her on staff for more than a few days. Andrew’d been planning to take sabbatical to stay home with the baby after May went back to regular work, would have been the one picking them up from daycare after classes or dropping them off at school. He’d been every bit as excited about all of it as May. They’d planned this out and saved up for the big house for a reason.

You could trust someone implicitly without liking them that much. It was strange to navigate, but doable. You did that for family. Andrew was May’s lover and she adored him, so Phil would take a bullet for him without question. And over time Phil had confided in Garner more things than he’d ever meant to, things that he’d never ended up telling anyone else. They’d just, never had much in common except a resigned acceptance that May would always be Wrong about the wonderful thing that was coffee.

There was a picture Laura had taken of him once, Cooper holding a bowl tightly for Phil to stir and Lila, still a toddler then, held carefully on his left hip while she tossed haphazard handfuls of chocolate chips into the bowl. They’d been making scones for breakfast, two days late for Thanksgiving but he’d been in the middle of nowhere in Sudan with Delta hitching a ride out by train. He’d thought everyone else was still asleep.

Phil had kept that picture in his phone for years. It’d been too dangerous since the Accords for them to send him pictures anymore. He’d never seen Nathaniel, would probably never meet him. Barton wouldn’t risk it and Coulson didn’t want him to.

He’d just, been looking forward to it all, the uncle thing, to hiding money in more birthday cards and buying one of whatever noisy, plastic monstrosity was popular that year that Andrew and May didn’t want in their damn house to mail them for Christmas.

May would have been a great mom. That was never even in question.

Phil’d lost most of that life when he’d lost most of May in Bahrain, when he’d sent her into a volatile situation alone though he knew deep down he probably couldn’t have stopped her going in if he’d tried.

He’d lost all the rest after Tahiti.

But, he’d never anticipated someone like Daisy.

Skye hadn’t been his first young recruit or his first protégé, by far hadn’t been the first odd talent he’d found and tried to give a new place in the world. That had been his wheelhouse before his death and had stayed a part of him after, though he’d been told and fully believed he was more impulsive and expressive now than he’d been before.

Phil was grateful now that he was already rewired that little bit kinder when they’d met.

There were just gaps in Skye’s life, in the things she’d been able to experience. That longing to belong somewhere, to put her skills to use, to make a positive difference in the world – those were the things he’d tried to give her through Shield. He’d said as much to May and meant every word.

It was the other stuff. How she wanted to be hugged when she was sad, cooking her dinner when she’d been injured or wasn’t feeling well, teaching her how to make muffins one morning on the bus because she’d admitted dry cereal and sandwiches were about all she could do and bonding over junk food. It was the way she tried to hold his hands when she thought he was upset about something or came to sit in his office when she couldn’t sleep.

And that, that was less about mentoring someone and more about being someone’s family.

She was older now and they’d all been through a lot, but Daisy still came to him more often than not if it’d been a bad day, still sought out reassurance when she’d made big decisions or taken point in the field. She was still the only one who could get away with inviting themselves to sleep in Lola’s backseat.

May was different with her too, and maybe she didn’t always realize it, but May was still the closest thing to a mother Daisy had ever had.

They hadn’t taken to each other immediately in the same way, Skye had been carrying too many suspicions they hadn’t known about at first and May had still been in such a bad place in her head, but Skye had looked up to May. There’d been things she needed that Phil hadn’t had the time or capacity to give her. May’d never really realized just how much she had to give, even before. 

Phil and Daisy did not have that problem. That May had raised Robin was only a surprise in that it had happened at all, not that May couldn't be maternal. 

There was that time years ago when he was barely going crazy yet and they’d been trying to get the Ragtag base off the ground, the three of them coming back from a late-night supplies arrangement when one of May’s boots had decided to give up the ghost. They were all running ragged and they’d stopped in a dying mall somewhere. May gave the empty ice rink inside the same suspicious look she always did and Skye’d said she didn’t know how to skate.

They’d been two hours late back to the base. It was still one of Phil’s favorite memories.

It wasn’t really like parenthood. She hadn’t been helpless when they’d met her, just young and inexperienced. She’d had biological parents who’d loved and wanted her, it had just ended tragically. They’d only watched her mature, not grow.

But, the love was still there.

In this lifetime, with everything they’d been through, everything they’d lost, it was more than enough. Phil was grateful for it every day.

 

**Author's Note:**

> 5x8 and the aftermath gave me a lot of family dynamic thoughts and feelings. There's been a lot of wonderful philindaisy stuff in 5a and its been such a long and traumatic series of events that got them to this point in their lives. Phil had some thoughts. 
> 
> PS - May and Robin are getting their own fic eventually. Writing it makes me sad...
> 
> PPS - I'm meanderings0ul on tumblr. Meanderingsoul was already occupied <3


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